g points the Duke of Alva
might have studied to advantage, in which the secret organization was not
made to suffer under some such confidence arrangement; and to say that its
adipose suffered under this bereavement of men's regards which it could so
illy spare, will not, we fear, adequately present the situation. It,
however, had placed itself in a position by which its motives were liable
to be misinterpreted; and as one of its professed foibles was its ability
to cover up its tracks in the least mysterious of its transactions; and,
as during the French Renaissance, times analogous to these, to wear a mask
was esteemed a crime from which all other crimes might be inferred, we
doubt whether its right to borrow sympathy on this exchange could be
logically maintained.

But while the Klan was doomed to nurse its woes of this character in not a
few instances, they proved immedicable wounds; and where the perpetrators
became known, or even suspected, it conducted a vendetta against the
individual conspirators which proved far more effective than all the
organized efforts of the "best government."

CHAPTER IX.

THE KLAN IN TENNESSEE.

Misgovernment in Tennessee--The Loyal League and the State
Administration--The K. K. K. an Outgrowth of the Conditions which the
former Inspired--Rapid Development of the Order on Tennessee
Soil--Its Purposes of Revenge--Legislation on the Subject--A
Governor's Proclamation--Militia called out and Detectives
Employed--The State pronounced a Ku-Klux Barracks--The Loyal League
in various Localities Succumbing to the New Element of Conquest--A
State Council of the League Summoned to meet at Nashville--The
Governor to Preside--The Secret out, and Counter Measures Resolved
upon by the Rival Party--Spies sent to Nashville--League Places of
Rendezvous throughout the State subjected to Espionage--A War of
Extermination against the Latter--A Simultaneous Uprising of the K.
K. K. throughout the State and Concerted Raids against the L. L.
Rendezvous in various Neighborhoods--Military Accomplishments of the
Grand Wizard--Subcommanders in Charge of the Expedition--Capture of
Secret Papers--Ku-Klux Hollow-square--Oath administered to
Captives--Success of the Undertaking--Shifting of Conditions.

As early as the spring of 1866, the head of the Order announced that the
recruiting-books for the State of Tennessee sh